Second Best
by enchanted-mind
Summary: "I am the second lover. There is no doubt about it. And where would I be if the first was not dead?" Jasper accepts the fact that he will always be the second one to love Alice, but there are times when he really doesn't like it. JxA


Second. It's after first. And hopefully before third.

I'm second. That means that I had a predecessor. You know, 'first'. The first lover.

Not me.

The fact pushes down on me, robbing me of the ability to breathe. Perhaps it is some level of instinctive protectiveness - or _possessiveness_ - that makes me cringe every time I am reminded that there was someone before me. The reminders are everywhere; Alice danced with Carlisle this evening, to the easy rhythm of the band, and I saw how a pair of lives could have been completely different. I saw Alice with another man, and I couldn't stop myself imagining that he was the original love. But it doesn't matter what prompts my insecurity, the fact still remains that I am, by default, not Alice's first choice, making me second best.

I would accept the argument that Alice is easily a very lovable girl who enchants many people, and that her charms simply worked their magic on the first guy and that was it. But, there are different levels of love and although I consider mine to be high, this guy equalled me. He wouldn't have sacrificed himself for her had it not been the case. Perhaps he even excelled beyond my level. How will I know? How will anyone know?

The quintessential problem is that I don't like it. I accept that I was not the first and only one, but I don't like it.

Obviously I won't tell Alice this. It would probably sadden her, because I know she cannot show anymore affection than what she does and she has never faltered with it. And it's not her fault that I think as sardonically as I do. It's mine.

But 'second' is still a fact.

Instinctively, I want to hate the guy for nearly taking my place in the reason for my existence's life. But I can't.

I can't hate a guy for beating me to the punch, loving Alice before me. For a start, I don't even know his name. That would just reek of immaturity to go on despising someone I can't name. But mostly, I can't loathe the man who single-handedly ensured Alice lived and found me.

How could I?

The only reason – or so I've been led to believe – that Alice is still here and didn't end up as a snack was this man. This man fell in love with Alice, understandably, and cared so much that he sacrificed his own life to give her an immortal one. I want to hate the man who loved my wife, but it is also the physical reason for her existence.

Now, I wouldn't take it so seriously if he was a human when the declaration of passion occurred. Humans tend to fall in and out of love because they can't distinguish what it's meant to feel like. Or if they do, they then change too much over time and end up incompatible with their 'other half'. He wasn't like that, and neither am I. That's partly where my problem lies: I don't change and I've lived long enough to know the difference between love, infatuation, and lust. And so did he; he had the same mental capacity, same abilities, and the same attraction levels. So what he felt for her was not mistakable; it was real.

Again, this would not be an issue had I not existed at the time. But I did. You didn't, but I did. And it's crap to know this. I was here the whole time, and yet I still came in at second best.

I mean, how you feel if Charlotte had a mate and then he was killed and then you moved in thinking you were the one? It's nuts! It's almost incomprehensible in our world... yet here I am, living the nightmare.

_Second best..._

After seeing Edward and Bella up there at the altar today, promising an eternity of love and devotion solely to one another, it kind of just contrasted my situation – Alice stood right next to them, dressed in white like the bride. The matrimonial pair had never loved another. There essentially wasn't any doubt between them that they were meant to be together. Next to them, I now find myself unable to say that about me and Alice. If that guy hadn't of died, then he and Alice would be living happily together. That is indisputable. If Alice had been given the chance to reciprocate his feelings, how could she not have? He was a doctor who obviously wasn't an ex-warmonger. Compare that to me, and it's clear to see how easily I could have lost out.

I sit here on the sidelines, watching her dance on the floor under all the roses and it makes me see, even as she laughs with her brother Emmett, that I don't stack up. And there is nothing that I can do to change that.

And she probably thinks about that too, about how different her life would have been had she remembered her human life or lived long enough to know her potential mate. Either of those pictures automatically cut me out. Do you think she likes it that way? It wouldn't surprise me. She can't not be at least intrigued.

Now, I am not saying that I am perfect, or that I'm drawing the short straw, or that I'm unsatisfied. I'm not asking for pity or apologies. Granted, I was not 'pure' when I met Alice, and she knew so, but I had never before come close to loving someone the way I do her and it kind of hurts to know that second place doesn't get all the honours first place does.

I am second. Second. You know, the fallback. The alternative. Not the real deal.

Yes, I may be Jasper who's married to Alice but, I'm still her second lover.

Peter, please say something remotely helpful. I can't ask anyone else and it's really starting to do my head in. And if you don't have any objections, I'm coming to stay with you for a while.

**A/N:** **Yeah, I know it was short, but I thought it was a little bit of angst (you know how I like it!) in something able to be read quickly. Kind of like a caffeine shot.**  
**Poor Jazz, sometimes he really does have it hard... What did you think? I'd really like to know... Thanks for reading!**


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